February 7, 2011

Game #53 -- Red Wings vs. Rangers

The Wings get back in the W column and on the scoreboard with a tough win against the Rangers. While it's a good feeling to celebrate the actual scoring of goals again, I must ask: 47 shots allowed? 47? If not for a fucking wall between the pipes tonight we'd all be more than a little disgruntled right now. But there was, so we won't be too worried until we drop another game to the Preds on Wednesday, amirite?yeahprobably.

Bullets:

Obligatory jersey notes: Rangers heritage jerseys are FAB-U-LOUS. I actually tried to write "really cool" but when your with a blog for as long as we've been with TTD, it knows how to show your true colors. They're an A+. And I'm always for the Wings wearing white at home, always a bonus.

Pierre McGuire, pregame with the Mule: "What do you have to do to beat an Original Six team like the Rangers?" Because Franzen plays the Pierre McGuire Drinking Game, he took a shot. And because the translation of the rules is unclear to him, the shot he took was at Pierre's head.

Sloppy first 10 minutes to this game, and then everybody started getting it together. Drapes talked about having to turn this slump around and playing with some pride and the organization and some stuff (I was half listening, I spend most Draper segments trying to will a beard permanently onto his face), and they appeared to dig in and get back to doing that. What "that" is I'm not sure because I'm half listening to myself, actually, but I recognize it when I see it because I'm from Detroit and Chrysler and Eminem and all that.

Doc Emerick referred to Dan(ny) Cleary as "Daniel". Pfffft, that's so (looking through Daniel Cleary Name Encyclopedia) 2007. Hell I don't even know anymore. In real life he probably goes by Cybertron or Jeffery. Maybe he's just "Eleven". Or as I like to imagine: "Sleazy D" -- a wayward Newfy from the wrong side of the tracks who turned tricks for beer money and couldn't pronounce his R's correctly until Ken Holland adopted him and his dirty orphan friends.

Oh how we missed the musk of Pavel. Goes to the corner and forces a turnover by himself, goes to the net while taking on multiple Rangers and bangs home the first goal in three games. This came seconds after they mentioned that the Wings have never been shut out three straight times in their history, causing my right eyeball to fall out of its socket.

If someone asked me why I like hockey, a clip of Jerry Hudler's 3rd period goal is what I would show them. Four guys touch the puck in a span of like three seconds. Two cross-ice passes, the second one being a perfect backdoor cut for a one-timer goal. A goal like this looks so good, it nearly gives me a boner. I mean ehhhh -- it gives Brent a boner. Wait that sounds worse. God dammit. I really shouldn't have invested in this new computer that replaced the backspace key with a tiny picture of a little laughing Asian baby.

Speaking of, a fellow named Scared Stiff point out that my first Pointless Prediction in ages wound up being the final score. S'pose I should do this more often.

During the game, Fil left with a lower body injury. My uneducated pessimistic diagnosis: broken thigh, out until 2012. Fuck.

A number of people are annoyed by Doc Emrick, but he's one of my favorite announcers ever, any sport. Maybe I'm in the minority. I would definitely be in the minority if I were Mexican, but that's not important. There's nothing like Doc calling the final minute of a one-goal game, goalie pulled, all hell breaking loose. That's right in his wheelhouse and he fucking nails it every single time. I stand by what I wrote during the '08 Finals: "My only gripe with him is that he's a little too good for games like that. Every shot had me shitting my pants because there's something about his voice that can make a mundane 65 foot wrist shot sound as epic as Christ coming back to Earth." Sidenote: assholes quote themselves.

Mike Milbury said that he thought "without question" Jimmy Howard was suffering mentally from the Wings going after Evgeni Nabokov. "Without question". Need I remind you of other things Milbury? Sidenote: embedding a video of yourself twice in one week is also done by assholes.

Every hockey game should end with Sean Avery getting his faced slashed twice while your team still wins.